did it for you,—­put such humiliation upon myself for you?  Why, you wanton, I care not if you stand in white at every church door in Virginia!  It was for him, for Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, for whose name and fame, if he cares not for them himself, his friends have yet some care!” The coach stopped, and the footman opened the door.  “Descend, if you please,” went on Evelyn clearly and coldly.  “You have had your triumph.  I say not there is no excuse for him,—­you are very beautiful.  Good-night.”

Audrey stood between the lilac bushes and watched the coach turn from Palace into Duke of Gloucester Street; then went and knocked at the green door.  It was opened by Mistress Stagg in person, who drew her into the parlor, where the good-natured woman had been sitting all alone, and in increasing alarm as to what might be the outcome of this whim of Mr. Marmaduke Haward’s.  Now she was full of inquiries, ready to admire and to nod approval, or to shake her head and cry, “I told you so!” according to the turn of the girl’s recital.

But Audrey had little to say, little to tell.  Yes, oh yes, it had been a very grand sight....  Yes, Mr. Haward was kind; he had always been kind to her....  She had come home with Mistress Evelyn Byrd in her coach....  Might she go now to her room?  She would fold the dress very carefully.

Mistress Stagg let her go, for indeed there was no purpose to be served in keeping her, seeing that the girl was clearly dazed, spoke without knowing what she said, and stood astare like one of Mrs. Salmon’s beautiful was ladies.  She would hear all about it in the morning, when the child had slept off her excitement.  They at the Palace couldn’t have taken her presence much amiss, or she would never in the world have come home in the Westover coach.

CHAPTER XXI

AUDREY AWAKES

There had lately come to Virginia, and to the convention of its clergy at Williamsburgh, one Mr. Eliot, a minister after the heart of a large number of sober and godly men whose reputation as a body suffered at the hands of Mr. Darden, of Fair View parish, Mr. Bailey, of Newport, Mr. Worden, of Lawn’s Creek, and a few kindred spirits.  Certainly Mr. Eliot was not like these; so erect, indeed, did he hold himself in the strait and narrow path that his most admiring brethren, being, as became good Virginians, somewhat easy-going in their saintliness, were inclined to think that he leaned too far the other way.  It was commendable to hate sin and reprove the sinner; but when it came to raining condemnation upon horse-racing, dancing, Cato at the playhouse, and like innocent diversions, Mr. Eliot was surely somewhat out of bounds.  The most part accounted for his turn of mind by the fact that ere he came to Virginia he had been a sojourner in New England.